Smart cities set to go worldwide by 2025

Seagate report claims that increasing floods of data will transform the way many of us go about our everyday lives.

Shares

Countries around the world are set to enjoy a major burst in connected technology as “smart cities” increasingly become the norm, new research has predicted.

A new report from Seagate has outlined the impact that smart cities will have around the world, including benefits not just in advanced technology development, but in areas as diverse as healthcare, leisure, and traffic management.

Seagate’s Data Age 2025 report, released in conjunction with IDC, predicts a major surge in smart city technology within the next decade as the advantages become clearer and more widespread.

The report forecasts that by 2025, what it calls ‘the global datasphere’ - the amount of data generated worldwide, will grow to 163 zettabytes (equivalent to a trillion gigabytes) - ten times the 16.1ZB of data generated in 2016.

This data all has the potential to be harnessed and utilised to unlock new opportunities, but could also be crucial to safeguarding our daily lives.

The report found that by 2025, nearly 20 per cent of the data generated globally will be classified as “critical” to our daily lives, and nearly 10 per cent seen as “hypercritical”. Areas such as healthcare will receive a major boost from smart cities, ensuring that their citizens lead richer, fuller lives.

The report adds that by 2025, the average connected person will interact with connected devices nearly 4,800 times per day (one interaction every 18 seconds), no matter where they are in the world.

However these huge increase in data being generated will need proper oversight, particularly as the huge IoT growth will lead to a surge in real-time information. The report estimates that by 2025, more than a quarter of data created in the global datasphere will be real time in nature, and real-time IoT data will make up more than 95 per cent of this.

“Cities across Europe are gradually becoming more digitalised and connected, and subsequently being flooded with an overwhelming amount of data,” said Kate Scolnick, senior vice president of investor relations and treasury at Seagate.

“With such an increasing amount of data available, it becomes apparent just how big a role data storage will have to play in developing smart cities. Data storage mobility, latency and reliability will all be key and being able to turn data into something actionable and of real benefit to citizens will be of critical importance to enable the smart cities of tomorrow to thrive."